‘What is this?’ Godrow asked. ‘This is a place of business, you know. Those cards have to...’
‘You went down for your customary coffee this morning, Freddie.’
‘Coffee?’ Godrow asked. ‘What coffee? Have you been...’
‘Only this time you dumped strychnine into Mary Chang’s. She took her coffee very sweet, and that probably helped to hide the bitter taste. Or maybe you made some comment about the coffee being very bitter this morning, anything to hide the fact that you were poisoning her.’
‘No...’ Freddie said.
‘She drank her coffee and ate her English muffin, and then — the way you did every morning — you gathered up the cups and the napkins and the crumbs and whatever, and you rushed out with them before Mr. Godrow arrived. Only this time, you were disposing of evidence. Where’d you take them? The garbage cans on Columbus Avenue? Do they collect the garbage early, Freddie?’
‘I... I...’
‘You knew the symptoms. You watched, and when you thought the time was ripe, you couldn’t resist boasting about what you’d done. Mary was making a call. You also knew how these calls worked because you made them yourself. There was usually a pause in the conversation while someone checked with the chef. You waited for that pause, and then you asked Mary if she knew why she was feeling so ill. You asked her because you weren’t making a call, Freddie, you were plugged in on her extension, listening to her conversation. She recognized your voice, and so she answered you in English. You told her then, and she jumped up, but it was too late, the convulsion came. Am I right, Freddie?’
Freddie nodded.
‘You’d better come with us,’ I said.
‘I... I still have to stamp the quotations on these,’ Freddie said.
‘Mr. Godrow will get along without you, Freddie,’ I said. ‘He’ll get himself a new boy.’
‘I... I’m sorry,’ Freddie said.
‘This is terrible,’ Godrow said.
‘Think how Mary Chang must have felt,’ I told him, and we left.
The Interview
Sir, ever since the Sardinian accident, you have refused to grant any interviews...
I had no desire to join the circus.
Yet you are not normally a man who shuns publicity.
Not normally, no. The matter on Sardinia, however, was blown up out of all proportion, and I saw no reason for adding fuel to the fire. I am a creator of motion pictures, not of sensational news stories for the press.
There are some ‘creators of motion pictures’ who might have welcomed the sort of publicity the Sardinian...
Not I.
Yet you will admit the accident helped the gross of the film.
I am not responsible for the morbid curiosity of the American public.
Were you responsible for what happened in Sardinia?
On Sardinia. It’s an island.
On Sardinia, if you will.
I was responsible only for directing a motion picture. Whatever else happened, happened.
You were there when it happened, however...
I was there.
So certainly...
I choose not to discuss it.
The actors and technicians present at the time have had a great deal to say about the accident. Isn’t there anything you’d like to refute or amend? Wouldn’t you like to set the record straight?
The record is the film. My films are my record. Everything else is meaningless. Actors are beasts of burden and technicians are domestic servants, and refuting or amending anything either might care to utter would be a senseless waste of time.
Would you like to elaborate on that?
On what?
On the notion that actors...
It is not a notion, it is a simple fact. I have never met an intelligent actor. Well, let me correct that. I enjoyed working with only one actor in my entire career, and I still have a great deal of respect for him — or at least as much respect as I can possibly muster for anyone who pursues a profession that requires him to apply makeup to his face.
Did you use this actor in the picture you filmed on Sardinia?
No.
Why not? Given your respect for him...
I had no desire to donate fifty percent of the gross to his already swollen bank account.
Is that what he asked for?
At the time. It may have gone up to seventy-five percent by now, I’m sure I don’t know. I have no intention of ever giving a ploughhorse or a team of oxen fifty percent of the gross of a motion picture I created.
If we understand you correctly...
You probably don’t.
Why do you say that?
Only because I have never been quoted accurately in any publication, and I have no reason to believe your magazine will prove to be an exception.
Then why did you agree to the interview?
Because I would like to discuss my new project. I have a meeting tonight with a New York playwright who will be delivering the final draft of a screenplay upon which we have laboured long and hard. I have every expectation that it will now meet my requirements. In which case, looking ahead to the future, this interview should appear in print shortly before the film is completed and ready for release. At least, I hope the timetable works out that way.
May we know who the playwright is?
I thought you were here to talk to me.
Well, yes, but...
It has been my observation that when Otto Preminger or Alfred Hitchcock or David Lean or even some of the fancy young nouvelle vague people give interviews, they rarely talk about anyone but themselves. That may be the one good notion any of them has ever contributed to the industry.
You sound as if you don’t admire too many directors.
I admire some.
Would you care to name them?
I have admiration for Griffith, DeMille, Eisenstein, several others.
Why these men in particular?
They’re all dead.
Are there no living directors you admire?
None.
None? It seems odd that a man known for his generosity would be so chary with praise for other acknowledged film artists.
Yes.
Yes, what?
Yes, it would seem odd, a distinct contradiction of personality. The fact remains that I consider every living director a threat, a challenge, and a competitor. There are only so many motion picture screens in the world, and there are thousands of films competing to fill those screens. If the latest Hitchcock thriller has them standing on line outside Radio City, the chances arc they won’t be standing on line outside my film up the street. The theory that an outstanding box-office hit helps all movies is sheer rubbish. The outstanding hit helps only itself. The other films suffer because no one wants to see them, they want to see only the big one, the champion, the one that has the line outside on the sidewalk. I try to make certain that all of my films generate the kind of excitement necessary to sustain a line on the sidewalk. And I resent the success of any film but my own.
Yet you have had some notable failures.